An Open Letter to My Cat: You had me at meow

Dear Sadie,

I love you.  You know I do.  I mean, I carried you for however long cats gestate.  I birthed you, for crissake. Don’t you dare listen to people who tell you otherwise.

I give you things.  I buy you expensive cheap toys and then go into the bathroom to cuss the world when you prefer to chew on my expensive therapy books instead.

I let you sit on my lap.  Even when I am trying to blog and eat ice cream at the same time.  Even in the summer, when you’re a steaming ball of fur that sticks to my sweaty legs.  Yummy.

I brush you.  Even though you get into a frenzy and try to bite the brush and end up biting my hand.  I understand; you can’t control yourself.  Those crazy social grooming-induced endorphins render you impulsive and violent.  But I know you bite because you care.

I feed you.  Even though you’re picky, and not even consistently picky.  You really love to keep me on my toes.

Most of all, I clean up after you.  I do all the normal expected cleaning up, sure – with pleasure.  I scoop your box full of clumped liquid and solid evil and then breathe in dust that probably causes evil-like organisms to grow in my lungs.  *cough, cough*

But you see, I go above and beyond because you take me to that place.  You challenge me.

It would be too easy for all the evil to be deposited in your box, and so you like to hide it.  And boy does that get an enthusiastic reaction from me.  Boy oh fucking boy.

It would also be too easy for evil to come out only one end of your Abomination Factory you call a body.  Gotta increase production during these hard times.  Maybe you have a monthly quota or something, I don’t know.

These additional little gifts, these little bits of Chewbacca Surprise really light up my mornings, especially when I am already late for work.

For all this, I’d like to thank you.  Truly.

Because what would I do with all that free time not spent scooping and scrubbing and cussing?  Let’s be honest, I’d probably be eating more ice cream.

So thanks.  I’d be fat(ter) and with less black lung disease without you.

And thanks also for the little extras you throw in, like when you serve as my alarm clock I never set on Saturday mornings.  You have no idea how much joy it brings me to hear your howling cries of longing as you reach up and jiggle the handle of my annoyingly loose bedroom doorknob.  I miss you, too, my little fur-demon.  I guess we can both sleep in when we’re dead.  Let’s see which one of us goes first.

You complete me.  You had me at meow.

Your loving Mama,

Melissa

P.S. – Remind me to tighten my bedroom doorknob.  And electrify it.

Advertisement

Therapists do it on the couch

…and I did it!!

On an office chair.  Staring at a computer screen.  I lasted for almost two hours, and I double clicked a mouse a few times.

And actually, besides being very tired and $100 poorer afterward, this therapist licensing exam had little to do with sexy times.  Unless you also stay up late studying therapeutic techniques in order to have better success during sexy times.  In which case I pity you.  Go get some sleep.

But I digress from the real issue – which is, as soon as the paperwork and my check goes through, I WILL BE A LICENSED THERAPIST!!!

How cool is that, you ask rhetorically?  Pretty damn cool, I answer needlessly.  Except that “therapist” can be broken down into “the rapist,” and the work that I do is often with rape survivors.  I’ve always hated that.  Thanks a lot, SNL.

In other news, the letters after my name will soon be MFT, which Brian lovingly says stands for Mutha Fuckin’ Therapist.  I foresee this going on my business cards.

The exam I took today was the second and final exam of the licensing process to become a Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of California.  At least this exam was half as long as the first (the first being a grueling four hours long), but the questions on this one were far more complicated and confusing.  If there’s one thing I hate, it’s an exam that makes me second guess myself, and there was a lot of that going on today.  But neverfear, for I persevered and I emerged triumphant!

Speaking of triumphant, the weather today in the area was awesomely correlated to my day.  I woke up nervously to overcast skies that quickly gave way to pouring rain (which is pretty rare for this area in the summer).  I drove to the exam in that rain, where my anxiety reached its peak.  When I emerged from the testing facility all smiles, the rain had stopped, the clouds had parted, the sun was shining, and I swear I could hear angels singing along with my joy.

Speaking of joy, this is what it looks like:

I’d like to thank all of my professors, clinical supervisors, coworkers, and my clients past and present for helping me to learn and grow and make mistakes.  And I’d like to thank my friends and family for listening to me vent about the former, but also for supporting me no matter what.

Also, one of my supervisors once said that significant others of people going through the therapy licensing process should get their own special award of recognition, and I wholeheartedly agree.  It must suck to watch me learn all these new therapy techniques and then cower in fear as I unleash them on the relationship.  Thanks for sticking with me through this whole thing, B.  You’re kind of awesome.

And now on to more important things: I have to figure out how I want to change the tagline of this blog, for the “almost” is no longer needed.  Winning suggestions get a cookie.

My name is Melissa and I am very important

Holy crapbags, you guys!  Some wonderful, kind soul nominated me for (and thus awarded me) the Versatile Blogger Award and I couldn’t be more humbled (contrary to what you may have heard…by reading the title of this blog post).

But seriously, I am super excited and very honored!

I promptly went to The Versatile Blogger Award Blog to figure out what this is all about, and turns out it comes with rules.  RULES, I TELL YOU!  Here they are:

•  Thank the person who gave you this award. That’s common courtesy.
•  Include a link to their blog. That’s also common courtesy — if you can figure out how to do it.
•  Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly. ( I would add, pick blogs or bloggers that are excellent!)
•  Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award — you might include a link to this site.
•  Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.

First things first: Thank you sooo much to Family Haikus!!!!!  For the record, she’d be one of the first bloggers that I would think of to nominate because I enjoy and look forward to her blog posts very much!

Nominate 15 blogs??  Eek, I’ll do my best, but I am new to this blogging shindig – and you know what – I have high standards (which, lets be honest, usually equates to a high volume of poop-related jokes).  I may not end up nominating that many, partly because most of the few blogs I read have already been either Freshly Pressed or awarded VBA, (or both) and I firmly believe in rooting for the underdogs (…also partly because I enjoy defying the rules).  Having said that, I am just going to give a list of the blogs I enjoy reading most, regardless of anything else, in no particular order.  Enjoy:

1. Raising My Rainbow – A wonderful, honest, open account of a loving mom and her gender nonconforming son C.J.

2. Paltry Meanderings of a Taller than Average Woman – Hilarious, blunt, and full of pictures to keep me more than entertained.

3. Dampsquid – Random.  A blog about nothing and everything all at once.

4. Ramblings and Rumblings – She does a regular post called Turd of the Week.  Sold.

5. Childhood Relived – Reliving the 80s, or what I remember about them.  And she introduced the word “bratass” into my vocabulary.

6. Nevercontrary – An awesome blend of quirky and inspirational.

7. The Bloggess – Because I have to.  This blog is my favorite BY FAR.  Just ask Brian, I worship this woman.  It’s only a matter of time until I begin bringing home taxidermied animals (consider this a warning, my dear Boyman).

Seven things about myself?  Oh dear, this could get interesting.

1. I have only one ovary.  Her name is Mae West.  You can just call her Mae.

2. I was sorted into Gryffindor.  You think I am joking, but I assure you, I am not.

3. Growing up in my household, love was communicated by administering thumps.  Thumps to the rump, to the back, to the thigh.  Brian wrongly interprets my love as hitting, and my cat responds to it by snapping at me and then running away.  I don’t understand this weird aversion to my love.

4. My parents grew up in Wisconsin and still retain some of their awesome midwestern accents.  Even though I was born and raised in California, every time I talk to my parents or extended family, or sometimes when I simply think fondly about them, I end up with an accent that lasts for days.  Indeed, I am typing this with an accent, doncha-know.

5. I am not a writer, exactly.  I am a therapist who would eventually like to write a book someday, and figured I might as well start with one of these blog thingies.  How’m I doing?

6. My favorite movie in the whole world is Moulin Rouge.  It has everything I love: singing, dancing, Bohemians, Ewan McGregor, and French midgets.

7. I was born in the wrong decade.  I shouldn’t even be here blogging to you now.  I should be in college in the late 60s,  being in awe with the space program, dancing to the music, burning my bra and protesting for women’s rights.  Booyah.  I mean…groovy.

So there you have it.  Thank you, thank you again for nominating me, thanks to my list of blogs/bloggers for keeping me entertained and off the streets, and thank you to the VBA blog for reblogging my post about my cancer-free anniversary.

Happy Blogging!